This is the compelling story of the illegal raid and seizure of Our Animal Haus animal sanctuary that happened in October of 2009. This story is complete with photos and links to official documents.
Read on....

Practical tips about interacting with police officers in California,
with ''dos'' and ''don'ts'' sections about being stopped for
questioning, stopped in your car, and being arrested or taken to a
police station.

I'm sure most of you have heard this
sort of Miranda Warning in TV shows sometime in the last 40+ years since
the original Miranda case was handed down by the Supreme Court. What
the Miranda case did in 1966 was set guidelines for when a suspect must
be told of their right to remain silent and their right to an attorney.

Most people don't realize that Miranda
only comes into play when a suspect in a criminal case has been taken
into custody or arrested. If you are being investigated by police or CPS
officials for any reason, no one is going to read you your Miranda
rights from the beginning, but that doesn't mean you can't invoke them.

At its most basic level, Miranda is to
protect you from self-incrimination. Where does this protection or right
come from? The U.S. Constitution, the basis for all our laws. If you
haven't read it lately, you need to. Go here for a free PDF file you can
download: http://www.apfn.org/pdf/citizen.pdf

No person shall be held
to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a
presentment or indictment of a Grand jury. . . nor shall any person be
subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or
limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness
against himself; nor be deprived of life, liberty or property, without
due process of law. U.S. Const.
Amend. V

The
Fourteenth Amendment provides, in part: "....nor shall any state
deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of
law." U.S. Const. Amend. XIV.

Let's get this clear. If you are
being questioned by officials of any type, you have a Constitutional
Right not to shoot your mouth off to them and spill your guts about
everything you know (or even don't know) to be reinterpreted by them,
which may or may not land you in jail with criminal charges
filed.

How can you take back any statements
once they've been uttered? Remember the WWII slogan, "Loose Lips Sink
Ships"? It certainly applies here. CPS doesn't have to get a guilty
verdict in a court of law to devastate your family and your children.
They can just put you in the hot seat, try you in the court of public
opinion and watch your life unravel like pulling a loose string on a
hand-knit sweater. They don't have to hit a bull's eye for the
collateral damage to take its toll. You may even never be charged
criminally and could still wind up loosing custody and your parental
rights terminated. You still loose your children and the State wins --
gloating all the way to the bank.

There is also no law for you to help
them prove or win any case they might be trying to build against you or
a loved one. In fact, you have the Right against self incrimination
according to the
5th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.

Case workers or investigators will go
on "fishing expeditions" for information that may or may not be related
to an incident that suddenly gets blown all out of proportion. Do not
give them fodder to chew on. They are not your minister, priest, or
rabbi; they are also not your parent, counselor, or friend. They have
their own agendas in the course of an investigation and it does not
include looking out for your Constitutional Rights. In fact, they will
try their best to threaten, intimidate, and cajole you into telling them
what they want to hear, regardless of your Rights.

Their goal in the course of their
investigation is to find you guilty - of something, ANYTHING, because
then it justifies their existence. The more people that are found
guilty, the more money that flows into the coffers of whatever
department you have, per chance, come across.

Asserting your innocence does no good,
because everyone is guilty of something if you dig long enough. They may
not be able to pin a murder charge on you because there's no body
(evidence), but what about jaywalking, littering, or spitting on the
sidewalk? Well, you must have done the crime, right? Otherwise you
wouldn't have been charged in the first place by this nice official who
has all the "right" credentials. It becomes a case of "he said/she
said". When you're dealing with a stacked deck, who wins? The person who
owns the deck!

The authorities are all familiar with
each other. They see each other on a regular basis. They conduct their
business together all the time. In fact their very jobs are dependent
upon money being brought in. Courtrooms are full of citizens being
brought in by various governmental departments. Police, sheriff,
code enforcement, dog catcher, you name it. And all these governmental
players have friends in the courthouse since they are there so often.
They are all playing on the same team folks!

They want you to play with them with their own stacked deck,
but they don’t tell you that it’s stacked. This is why we have
constitutionally guaranteed Rights to help you deal with the "stacked
deck." This is even if you didn't know the deck was stacked in the
first place! If you don't assert your Rights, it is as good as if you
didn't have any. If you don't know what your Rights are, how are you
going to let them protect you? If you willingly talk with
investigators, you are giving up Rights that protect you. At this point,
you have waived them and you have consented to abandon your Rights. Why
should you? Why do you want to help them "win" their case? Why do you
want to give them ammo for their gun? They want you to play with them
with their own stacked deck, but they don't tell you it's stacked.

It's probably because you don't remember
your high school civics class, how to be a good citizen by knowing and
asserting your Rights to better balance the power between yourself and
the authorities. You have also been watching too many brain numbing
shows in which the suspect willingly gives up their Right to remain
silent before they talk with their attorney. Monkey see, monkey do! You
have to stop that right now.

Now is the time to install the proper "software" in your
hardware (your brain) on how to deal with contacts with the authorities.
Watch these videos to help you remember:

"The government's
interest in the welfare of children embraces not only protecting
children from physical abuse, but also protecting children's interest in
the privacy and dignity of their homes and in the lawfully exercised
authority of their parents."
Calabretta v. Floyd, 189 F.3d 808 (1999).

Remember, learning about and knowing your Rights and
respectfully asserting them during encounters is no guarantee that your
Rights won't be violated. But, it does help diffuse a situation before
it becomes all blown out of proportion, with reason and logic having
gone out the window - for both sides.

The key is to be respectful. Even if the other side isn't
doing the same to you, be kind in your replies to them. Do this if it
takes every ounce of willpower you can muster. It puts them off guard.
It also lets the investigator know that you are not just some hick that
fell of the turnip truck yesterday, and they cannot run roughshod over
you willy-nilly. Besides, you do have your tape recorder or video camera
running, right? (Don't think about posting to You Tube just yet -
better talk it over with your legal counsel.)

You want to make sure that you not only have a cool demeanor
in dealing with these people, but that you look like the one who is the
innocent party in this whole situation, and that you have your act
together! You can wig out, scream, cry, or whatever, in the safety and
comforts of your own bedroom after these guys are gone. Do not let
them see you are intimidated or cowed by their behavior. But, neither
do you want to come off cocky or like a smart aleck. If there is any
time to be calm, cool and collected, this is that time.

This Act has two provisions to help
protect children and families during child abuse investigations. First,
it requires CPS workers to be trained in their duty to protect the
statutory and constitutional rights of the very people they are
investigating. Secondly, CPS workers are to tell people involved in an
abuse or neglect investigation what the complaint or allegation is that
has been made.

Once upon a time when the King was on
his throne, his agents went from house-to-house looking for printed
papers, and "prohibited and uncustomed" goods. These items either had
been smuggled in to avoid the high tax, or were claimed by the King to
promote seditious libel and civil unrest. The Colonists grew tired of
these "writs of assistance", general warrants, that made no man's home
his castle. They were viewed as unreasonable by the early Patriots.
Because of these issues, the Founding Fathers wanted boundaries to the
"blank check" warrants that had been common. From these circumstances,
the
Fourth Amendment was birthed.

"The right of the
people to be secure in their persons, house, papers and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no
Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause supported by Oath or
affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and
the persons or things to be seized. U.S. Const. Amend. IV."

Since the penning of those great words, many years ago, there
have been many court rulings that have defined and refined the limits of
search and seizure. The key is the "reasonableness" test.

"A "seizure" (of
property) occurs when there is some meaningful interference with an
individual's possessory interests in that property. Jacobsen, 466
U.S. at 113; Brooks v. Sauceda, 85 F.Supp.2d 1115"

I know many social workers and others
believe there is an exemption of the warrant requirement in child abuse
investigations. But, the Ninth Circuit Court has ruled in
Calabretta v. Floyd that as a general rule, unreasonable searches
and seizures are banned and it presumes that all warrantless searches
are unreasonable. The only exemptions for not getting a warrant (aside
from voluntarily agreeing to a search) during the course of an
investigation for child abuse are twofold:

1.That the
social worker has in his or her possession evidence that would establish probable cause, and

2.There are
exigent circumstances (meaning there is an emergency) threatening the
health or welfare of the child.

A Warrant is a court order specifically
describing the person, place or thing to be seized or searched.

How Do They Get a Warrant?

A governmental official applies to the court to try to obtain
permission for them to invade your privacy to obtain information that
may be useful to them in convicting someone -- probably yourself, or
someone you know, of a crime. In the application, they have to be
specific about their allegations, i.e. "We have been told by (friend,
relative, school teacher, etc) that John Doe's (house, property, car,
person, computer, etc) contains evidence that he (knows about,
participated in, personally committed) the crime of (name your favorite
here).

They have to show the court "probable cause" which is a good
reason for assuming that a crime has been committed, and that you or the
person in question did it. The facts that are known must be sworn to, or
attested, that they are true to the best of the beliefs of the person
making the application.

Anonymous tips, by themselves, cannot be the basis of a
warrant, since you have no means of testifying to their veracity.
However, if you have an anonymous tip that corroborates the other
information that has been gathered from other known sources, you can use
it. But again, not all on its own.

“[A]n anonymous tip,
without more, does not constitute probable cause.” See United States v.
Wright, 215 F.3d 1020, 1025 (9th Cir. 2000) (citing, inter alia,
Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 227 (1983)). For an anonymous tip to be
accorded any weight there must be some basis that the tip is true.
United States v. Luong, 470 F.3d 898, 903 (9th Cir. 2006)."

“Frankly, it is
difficult to conceive how a social worker, whose work is directly
governed by state law and regulation, could claim to have a reasonable
belief that a warrantless removal that is expressly prohibited by state
law and regulation is somehow permitted by the Constitution.” Moodian
v. County of Alameda Social Services Agency 206 F.Supp.2d 1030,
*1035 (N.D.Cal., 2002

Doe v. Carla Heck, a 7th Circuit Court of Appeals 2003 decision
where a social worker entered a private school to interview a certain
11-year-old child in an attempt to find out about corporal punishment he
and other students may have had and other "certain family matters".
(This is the fishing expedition, folks!)

On a later occasion, the social worker tried to interview
other students, but was denied access to the children without a court
order or parental consent. The social worker later had to close the
investigation for lack of information and the parents of the 11-year-old
child sued for violations of their Rights under the 4th and 14th
Amendments.

The social worker(s) "went to the school for the specific purpose of
gathering information, an activity that most certainly constitutes a
search under the Fourth Amendment,” and that "under the traditional
approach, the term 'search' is said to imply 'some exploratory
investigation or an invasion and quest, a looking for or seeking
out.’” The court found that the 11-year-old child "had been 'seized'”
within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment because no reasonable child
would have believed that he was free to leave..." citing Brokaw, 235 F3d
at 1010 "holding that the defendants action of taking a child into
custody, without the consent of his parents, for the purpose of
questioning him about allegations of child neglect was a seizure under
the
Fourth Amendment".

Did you get that? The court has ruled
that gathering information is an activity that constitutes a search
under the 4th Amendment. A fishing expedition is a search, and as such,
you are protected by your Constitutional Rights, unless you waive them.

This ruling above, however, does give
the authorities a loophole, as it restricts these fishing expeditions on
PRIVATE property, i.e. a private home, private school, etc. A PUBLIC
school does not have these protections. Why? When you drop your
child(ren) off at the schoolhouse door, you are then giving the public
school authority to act in your stead via something called "in
loco parentis" which is Latin for "in place of the parents."
(Related term:
Parens Patriae which is Latin for
"father of the people")

When the public school exercises their
version of in loco parentis, they substitute their judgment for
yours. Remember, they are government officials that you place in charge
of your children for approximately 180 days a year. They will do what
they deem best for your child while you are not there, including letting
other governmental personnel have access to your child. You remember
that the public school is a governmental institution, don't you?

''...[S]chool officials
act as representatives of the State, not merely as surrogates for the
parents.''469 U.S. 336 (1984)

You give this same authority to a
private school, but with a few differences.

Number one, they are not a
governmental entity.

Secondly, this school probably
reflects your values and standards better than the public
institution. A public school probably has different values and
standards than you do in your home. Their mantra is often "Is it
good for the children?", which they have loosely translated from the
legal definition of "in the best interests of the child."

Third, a private school is more
interested in protecting your rights as they have a vested interest
in keeping you a happy customer. They want your business, (you pay
them money) and are willing to abide by your rules, and you have
already given them a copy of your Reverse Miranda notice and the
Hatch Amendment Letter, right?

A public school has public monies at its
disposal. They don't have to please you, as they feel they are the only
legitimate source of education there is, even if it isn't. They don't
want the parents to have the freedom to choose, because when we do, we
often don't choose the public version of school.

“In the context of
removing a child from his home and family, a seizure is reasonable if it
is pursuant to a court order, if it is supported by probable cause, or
if it is justified by exigent circumstances, meaning that state officers
‘“have reason to believe that life or limb is in immediate jeopardy.’”
Brokaw, 235 F.3d at 1010 (quoting Tenenbaum v. Williams, 193 F.3d 581,
605 (2d Cir. 1999) (citation omitted)). The same standard for
reasonableness applies when a child is seized from a private school
where she has been placed by her parents. See Doe, 327 F.3d at 512
(holding “[i]n our view, there is no basis for concluding that when a
minor child is entrusted to the care of a private school in loco
parentis his reasonable expectation of privacy, vis-à-vis government
officials, differs in any material respect from that which he would
otherwise expect to receive at home.”).

"Seventh Circuit Court
of Appeals has ruled in favor of two Wisconsin children who were
strip-searched by a state social worker at a private Christian school.
In Michael C. v. Gresbach, the appeals court panel unanimously
ruled that the social worker, Dana Gresbach, violated the Fourth
Amendment rights of the children to be free from an unreasonable search.

"The court stated that
"it is a violation of a child’s constitutional rights to conduct a
search of a child at a private school without a warrant or probable
cause, consent, or exigent circumstances." The court held the social
worker personally responsible for violating the students’ rights,
because the law in this area is so clear that she should have known her
actions were unconstitutional. Although the school principal allowed the
social worker to interview the students, the social worker never even
mentioned that she intended to require the children to remove their
clothing. In addition, the social worker refused to allow the principal
to contact the parents before the interview or to be present when she
forced the children to strip.

"Stephen Crampton, Vice
President of Legal Affairs and General Counsel for Liberty Counsel,
commented: "Decades ago, the United States Supreme Court emphatically
ruled that the child is not the mere creature of the state.
Unfortunately, social workers repeatedly ignore that fact and routinely
trample parents' rights under the guise of protecting the children. This
ruling sends the message that the Constitution is still in effect
protecting law-abiding families from the overreaching arm of the state,
both in the home and in private schools."

In Arizona on Sept 27,
2007, in the case
Loudermilk v. Arpaio, a Federal Court ruled that an unsupported
threat to place children in custody was unconstitutional because the
fear tactics the social workers and sheriff's deputies used violated the
constitutional guarantee of family privacy and integrity.

“Defendants persisted
in their threats to remove the children if Plaintiff Parents did not
consent to the search, stating that [they] could arrest or handcuff the
Parents in front of the children. Based on the allegations set forth in
the Amended Complaint, viewed in Plaintiff’s favor, no reasonable
official would have believed that his or her conduct was authorized by
state or constitutional law.”

The judge additionally cites:

"The principle that
government officials cannot coerce entry into people’s houses without a
search warrant or applicability of an established exception to the
requirement of a search warrant is so well established that any
reasonable officer would know it.” Calabretta, 189 F.3d at 813.
Similarly, “[t]he constitutional right of parents and children to live
together without government interference is well established.” Mabe, 237
F.3d at 1107 (citing
Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 753 (1982))."

“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance. And people who mean
to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge
gives. A popular government without popular information or the means of
acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps
both.” James Madison, letter to W.T. Barry (August 4, 1822), reprinted
in G.P. HUNT, ED., IX THE WRITINGS OF JAMES MADISON 103

“The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to
the agencies that serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do
not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the
people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist
on remaining informed so that they may maintain control over the
instruments that they have created.” Washington Public Records Act, RCW
§42.17.251

Unless courts are
prepared to enforce these rights and protect those charged with crime,
irrespective of their obvious guilt, they condone illegitimate and
unconstitutional practices which, if long adhered to, may result in a
breakdown of the protection accorded free men by the Fourth and Fifth
Amendments.[fn3] This course, like the enforcement of other parts of the
Bill of Rights, may often afford a shelter for criminals, "But the
forefathers thought this was not too great a price to pay for that
decent privacy of home, papers and effects which is indispensable to
individual dignity and self respect. They may have overvalued privacy,
but I am not disposed to set their command at naught."[fn4] BROCK v.
UNITED STATES, 223 F.2d 681 (5th
Cir. 1955).

So what do you do if the "authorities" come knocking at your
door? First of all, why answer the door if you don't know who it is?
There's no law that says you are obligated to answer every knock on the
door (or every time the phone rings!). But, if someone tries to catch
you unawares, perhaps on your way from the house to the car to go
someplace, how should you respond? Perhaps your encounter could go a bit
like this:

Social worker comes up
to you and says, "Hi, I'm Sarah Snake with the Division of Family
Services. I'd like to ask you and your children a few questions about a
complaint we've had. I'm required by law to come into your home to
investigate." She hands you her business card and has her photo id
clipped to the lanyard around her neck.

You are about to reach
for the door to go inside to put your groceries away. Your children have
already scurried inside. Close the front door and stand outside your
house. (You don't want her to follow you into the house like a little
puppy without permission, and they will try.) You turn to the SW and
say, "Oh, what is the nature of the complaint?" (You have a right to
know this before you answer any of their questions.)

You politely reply,
"I'm sorry, but I'm sure my attorney is going to ask what the
investigation is about. He's also instructed us not to allow you into
our house without a search warrant. May I see yours please?" (Be
reaching for your cell phone to call your attorney.)

A bit miffed that you
aren't cowing to her every whim and desire, Sarah Snake snips back, "I
can get one in a matter of minutes. What are you trying to hide,
anyway?"

Nicely as you can, you
muster a smile even though you feel as if you've just been slapped in
the face or worse yet, sucker punched in the gut. However, you also know
that she can't get a warrant without support of imminent physical danger
and probable cause, and an anonymous complaint can't be the basis of a
search warrant.

"I understand your
concerns, Ms. Snake. I'm sure you've had training in upholding the
Constitutional Rights of citizens in the course of carrying out your
job, haven't you Ms. Snake? I'm sure you're just as concerned as we are
about the gradual usurpations of these Rights, aren't you Ms. Snake?
It's because of this, Ms. Snake, that I must tell you we need a search
warrant before any further investigation. I'm sure you understand. Have
a nice day, Ms. Snake."

At this point, you enter your home and
close the door securely behind you.

Some Helpful Sentences to Learn
For Encounters With Authorities:

·"What seems to be the
problem officer?"

·"May I see your warrant?"

·"I do not consent to a
search, officer."

·"I understand your
concerns and I'm happy to cooperate. May I see your search warrant
please?"

·"I do want to cooperate;
however, I do not want to ignore proper established procedure."

·"Why would you want to
circumvent clearly established laws and procedures?"

·"I am happy to do all that
is asked of me by the court. Do you have a court order for the things
you are asking?

The three most important things for you
to do after you politely inform someone you wish to stand on your
Constitutional Rights (objecting to a warrantless search, right to
remain silent, etc.) are:

1. Be quiet

2. Shut up and

3. Don't say anything

And then as soon as possible, talk with
your legal counsel. Get a notepad and pen and write up the sequence of
events while it's still fresh in your mind. Do not give a copy to any
investigators, only to your attorney.

Finally, read, read, and read as if Your
Life depends on it. You have been thrust into a situation that you were
not expecting for the most part, but you can't give up. You have been
thrown into shark-infested waters and you must learn to swim, and swim
quickly.

Please let us know if you have a
question we can help you with. We're not attorneys, we're just like you,
people that were once in the same midst of a sink or swim, do or die,
circumstance. We made it through, and so can you. Hang tough.

Idea Description
(Originally Posted 5/2/08 on IdeaBlog)

I am the
CA. Director for
NFPCAR (National Foster Parent
Coalition for Allegation Reform) & we are a non profit
online support group for families who have been falsely attacked by
CPS or the Juvenile Justice System. Our support group is developing
"Miranda Dog Tags" as a "safe-guard" for children that will protect
them from being forced to talk to "strangers" who try to interview
them without the parents present. On one side of the tag would have
personal contact information and the other side would have a brief
"Miranda" statement for the child to use when needed. These Dog Tags
can be worn by any child and presented when cornered by strangers.
Directions for proper use will be included.This idea is meant for ALL
parents...children...biological, foster, adoptive or kinship care.
We at NFPCAR totally AGREE that the common enemy is CHILD PROTECTION
SERVICES...(CPS) and we ALL need to stand together in this fight. As
soon as we can get these "dog tags" manufactured and on the market
they will be offered to "anyone"...not just foster families. Anyone
who is interested in joining together in this fight for justice
please feel free to join our NFPCAR group by going to...the bottom
of this page...and signing up. Our support group is FREE to anyone
who wants to join and we are open to any and all parents,
grandparents and kinship caretakers. Please help us achieve our goal
to help protect our children and families from the
enemy...Goliath...(i.e. CPS and the Juvenile Justice System). I can
be reached at the NFPCAR group site
or at
dogpatch1940@yahoo.com.Thanks for your support,NanceeCA Director, NFPCAR

Okay, I found a site from AFRA (American Family
Rights Association) with a three panel pamphlet, that may be a
little over the top. But who is to say we can't print it and hand it
out? The way you print it out is a little rough, so I created a file
called Miranda.pdf. So click on this link and print away.

I keep seeing too many
posts that say their Schools don't accept Miranda. I just
read something on the AFRA site that said there was a higher court
decision that says the Schools don't need to read rights unless the
police say so. However, I found nothing that says a Parent can't
inform the school that no one can not question your child
without you and/or your lawyer present.

I came across something that I thought might be helpful for those of you
in current investigations and any future investigations. This is an
excerpt from a letter written by Carolyn Middleton, who is a paralegal
and has a group called THE COMMITTEE. She has a very specific response
that she gives even when being questioned as a "witness".

When police arrived the ex-husband, (having heard
the sirens), left in haste. When police arrived, an officer approached
me and asked what was going on. I replied, "I can't say". He repeated
his request, claiming he was investigating a report of domestic
violence. Again I repeated, "I can't say". "Why can't you
say?", questioned the officer. Because under my Constitutional Rights
and the application of Miranda, I choose to exercise my right to remain
silent.

The officer became quite angry
with me and said, "That only applies to your right not to give witness
against yourself", to which I responded, "I am a paralegal and this is
my client. As such I cannop give testimony against her either. The
officer became even more angry with me and threatened to arrest me. I
drew my hands out in front of me and said, "Let's go!" The next second
the officer attempting to interrogate me, left me alone and started
in on my client, who told him everything about what her ex-husband had
done, and the fact that she had a restraining order against him. The
officer came back to me and asked me to verify what my client had said.
I simply shrugged my shoulders and said, "I can't say". The officer
turned away from me and told his partner, in an angry tone, "I'm done
with this one!"

When being questioned, her primary response
is "I can't say." When the officer asks her "Why can't you say?", her
response is "Because under my Constitutional Rights and the application
of Miranda, I choose to exercise my right to remain silent."

I believe that this is very important for
all of us to memorize and burn into our brains. You generally will not
be advised/reminded of your miranda rights when being questioned in a
CPS investigation. You also will not generally be advised/reminded of
your miranda rights when being questioned as a "witness". Many times,
police will just say they are questioning you as a "witness", but will
in fact be questioning you as a "potential suspect". They are legally
allowed to lie to you and can tell you that someone has already
confessed, so you need to hurry up and confess and try to make a deal
before the other person. They can tell you that they have evidence to
prove you did it, even when they have nothing.

Jargondatabase.com defines "Reasonable Deception" as "A legal
doctrine that says police may lie to suspects during interogations so
long as an innocent person would not be affected. For example, the
police could say that they had found a bloody fingerprint when they had
not. The innocent person would know that they were lying, but the guilty
would not be sure. A very effective technique, and one of the main
reasons why defense lawyers exist." Notice
that it says they may lie during interrogations "so long as an innocent
person would not be affected". How many of us on this group can testify
from experience that their deception has indeed affected an innocent
person?

I also found the following links and thought I would share them as
well. Hope they help some of you with what you're going through right
now.

Comments from Contributor

This article was originally posted on the American Bar Association
website but I couldn't find the original link, so I had to copy and
paste it from my saved web pages. There's also two more interesting
links called "How the System Works" and "Truth in Justice" posted at the
bottom of this article. I'm not sure if the links at the bottom of this
article will work for you (I was able to connect to them from my saved
webpage), so here they are as well:
http://www.truthinjustice.org/systemworks.htm and
http://www.truthinjustice.org/index.htm .

Truth in Justice has this to say on their website: "Truth in Justice is
an educational non-profit organized to educate the public regarding the
vulnerabilities in the U. S. criminal justice system that make the
criminal conviction of wholly innocent persons possible."

"When we say "wholly innocent," we mean a person
who had absolutely no part in the crime charged. An innocent person is
deprived of life, liberty and the opportunity to contribute to society,
while the guilty party is free to commit more crimes against
unsuspecting victims. In many instances, no crime was committed in the
first place -- a suicide is charged as homicide, or an accidental fire
is mistaken for arson. How does this happen? Faulty eye witness
identification, tunnel vision investigators, over zealous prosecutors,
bad science, compromised experts and a politicized judiciary are major
factors, along with a credulous public."

"Why should you be concerned about wrongful
conviction? The cases here make the answer clear: it can happen to
anyone, including you. What can you do? Educate yourself. Ask
questions. Think. Stop rewarding malfeasance. It starts with just one
person. It starts with YOU."

UNTRUE CONFESSIONSProf. Paul Cassell

No one says that police have brought
out the rubber hose, but some of their interrogation techniques are
raising questions about why innocents confess to crimes they didn't
commit.

BY MARK HANSEN

Two days after 12-year- old Stephanie Crowe was found stabbed to death
on the bedroom floor of her Escondido, Calif., home, her 14-year-old
brother, Michael, told police he had killed his younger sister as she
slept.

Not long afterward, one of his friends and
classmates told police he stood lookout the night of Jan. 20, 1998,
while Michael and a third boy sneaked into Stephanie's bedroom and
killed her. Based entirely on the two boys' statements, police
came up with the theory that Michael, jealous of the attention his
sister was getting, enlisted his friends in a plot to kill her. The only thing missing in the investigation was
the murder weapon. Police thought they found it when they came across
the younger brother of one of the boys playing with a hunting knife.
Later the older boy told police he had been given the knife after the
killing and told to hide it. With that, all three were arrested on charges of
conspiracy and first-degree murder, and the case became an overnight
media sensation: Three seemingly typical teenagers from apparently
"good" homes whose shared fascination with knives and computer games had
gotten way out of hand. One TV tabloid show even went so far as to
describe the case as "The Devil Son Who Murdered the Angel Daughter."
The only problem with the whole scenario is that
all three boys may be innocent. That became clear at the start of jury
selection in a trial in January, when prosecutors disclosed that
Stephanie's dna had been found on a bloody sweatshirt worn by a
29-year-old vagrant seen knocking on doors and peering in windows the
night the girl was murdered. In late February, prosecutors dismissed all
charges against the three, though they left open the possibility that
they may be refiled later. By late May, the vagrant had not been charged
in connection with Stephanie's death. If the boys hadn't joined in a plot to kill
Stephanie, the "confessions" by two of them, who both quickly recanted,
raise troubling questions about human nature. But they also raise
troubling questions about standard police interrogation tactics. What kind of person would confess to a crime he or
she didn't commit? And given the fact that some people apparently do,
what makes them more likely than anybody else to confess falsely? The answer, experts say, is that while practically
anybody can be made to confess to something he or she didn't do under
the intense psychological pressures of a modern police interrogation,
the young and the mentally impaired are more susceptible than most.
That's because the young and the mentally impaired
tend to be more suggestible, more eager to please, more deferential
toward people in positions of authority and less capable of rational
decision-making than the average person. The whole point of an interrogation, after all, is
to extract a confession from somebody police suspect is probably guilty
by leading that person to believe the evidence is overwhelming, his or
her fate is certain, and the benefits from confessing outweigh the
costs. To do that, police interrogators employ a variety
of psychological tactics designed to wear down a suspect and break the
person's resistance--from appealing to the suspect's conscience to
fabricating claims of evidence--all of which is perfectly legal and
highly effective. Hopeless ConfusionBut the same tactics that work so well at getting
the guilty to confess sometimes work just as well with the innocent, who
tend to confess to a crime they didn't commit for one of two reasons.
Either they come to the conclusion that their situation, while unjust,
is hopeless and will only be improved by confessing, or their faith in
their own memory is so badly shaken they come to believe they are guilty
even though they don't remember it. "The logic is really quite simple," says Richard
J. Ofshe, a sociology professor at the University of California at
Berkeley who studies the relationship between police interrogation
tactics and false confessions. "If you put somebody in a situation he
believes is hopeless and you give him a choice between two bad options,
you can get him to say just about anything you want." Ofshe recalls one case in which police induced a
suspect to confess by telling him they had satellite photos of him
committing the crime. In another case, he says, a quick-thinking
detective invented a new type of bogus technology--called a neutron
proton negligence intelligence test--to persuade a suspect that police
had scientific proof he fired the gun used to kill two people. Saul Kassin, a social psychologist at Williams
College in Williamstown, Mass., who specializes in the dynamics of
police interrogations, says average people tend to think they would
never confess to a crime they didn't commit. But average people don't
understand how stressful a police interrogation can be, he says. "We all have our breaking point," Kassin notes.
"When somebody reaches his or her breaking point, all he or she wants to
do is escape. And the quickest means of escaping a police interrogation
is to tell [interrogators] what they want to hear." The Vulnerable OnesThe question, then, is not whether innocent people
falsely confess, but how often. E. Michael McCann, Milwaukee's district attorney,
says any experienced prosecutor knows it can, and sometimes does,
happen, particularly when the person confessing is a young child or
someone with limited intellectual abilities. But McCann says a false confession can usually be
distinguished from a truthful one depending on whether it includes
details about the crime only the offender would know. The danger, he
says, is that the false confessor could inadvertently have been provided
those details before or during interrogation. "Even the most conscientious cop can make a
mistake," McCann says. "That's why you have to be extremely careful in a
situation like that, particularly if there is no independent,
corroborating evidence to go along with the confession." Some prosecutors admit there are false confessions
and there are coerced confessions, but they say there is no such thing
as a police-induced false confession. "Innocent people do confess sometimes, which is a
real problem for law enforcement," says Joshua Marquis, the Clatsop
County, Ore., district attorney. "But the idea that somebody can be
induced to falsely confess is ludicrous. It's the Twinkie defense of the
1990s. It's junk science at its worst." Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of
Utah and a former federal prosecutor, studies the phenomenon of false
confessions. He says the problem doesn't appear to be pandemic, as
others have suggested, but confined to a very narrow and especially
vulnerable subset of the population, namely the mentally impaired.
"The evidence suggests that those with mental
limitations are at special risk of false confessions, but that it's
actually quite rare and hardly ever results in a wrongful conviction,"
he says. Yet Kassin says there have been enough documented
instances of false confessions in capital cases, which tend to get far
more scrutiny than noncapital cases, to suggest that the problem is a
lot bigger than anyone would like to think. Ofshe and a colleague, Richard A. Leo, a professor
of criminology, law and society at the University of California at
Irvine, claim to have identified more than 250 likely cases of false
confessions in the post-Miranda era. Sixty of these have been
documented in an article they wrote for the Winter 1998 issue of the
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. 88 J. Crim. L. &
Criminology 429. In their article, Ofshe and Leo not only analyzed
the evidence in the 60 cases they examined but grouped them into three
categories: 34 of which they classify as proven false confessions, 18 as
highly probable and eight as probable. One case they classify as probable may even have
resulted in an innocent man's exe- cution, the authors contend. That is
the case of Barry Lee Fairchild, who was executed in 1995 for being an
accessory in the 1983 abduction, rape and murder of a Pulaski County,
Ark., woman. According to Ofshe and Leo, no independent
evidence linked Fairchild to the crime. And Fairchild, a mentally
handicapped man who had steadfastly maintained his innocence, insisted
he had confessed to the crime only because he had been beaten and
tortured by the local sheriff and one of his deputies. (Two former
sheriffs now admit that beatings were a common interrogation tactic at
the time of Fairchild's arrest.) A case Ofshe says is sure to appear on the next
list surfaced in Chicago last August, when the police announced they had
solved the July 28 murder of an 11-year-old girl, Ryan Harris, with the
arrest of two boys, ages 7 and 8, both of whom were said to have
confessed to the crime. But charges against the boys were dropped after
semen found on the victim's underwear was linked to Floyd Durr, an
ex-convict who was already awaiting trial for sexually assaulting three
young girls. In late April, Durr was charged with Harris' murder as
well. Interrogation TacticsBut the Stephanie Crowe case is a textbook example
of how a police interrogation can go wrong, according to Ofshe, who was
an expert for the defense, and others connected with the case. Police thought from the beginning that the murder
was an inside job because the house showed no sign of forced entry. And
they quickly settled on Michael as the prime suspect. One of the first
officers on the scene had described him as being "inappropriately
bereaved." Michael, who was immediately separated from his
parents, was brought in to the station for questioning the day after
Stephanie's murder. Over the course of the next five hours he adamantly
and repeatedly insisted he had nothing to do with his sister's death.
But he was brought back the next day and administered a controversial
lie detector test known as a computerized voice stress analyzer--which
he was told he had failed--and then grilled for another six hours.
Police used every trick in the book to get Michael
to confess, according to a transcript of the interrogation, most of
which was videotaped. They told him there was a mountain of evidence
against him. They made him write a note of apology to his dead sister
for having killed her. They told him his parents hated him and never
wanted to see him again because they had come to believe he had killed
his sister. And they told him if he confessed he would receive
psychological treatment instead of prison, where, he was reminded, he
would have to shower with some unsavory characters. At one point in the interrogation Michael began to
wonder aloud whether he might have had something to do with his sister's
death, though he still maintained he had no memory of it. Eventually, he
came to accept the notion that he must be guilty. "I completely blocked myself out," he said near
the end of the session. "And I wouldn't even know that I did it if she
wasn't dead. It just as easily could have been a dream. I can't
remember." After Michael's confession, police repeated the
same process with Joshua Treadway, the 14-year-old friend who supposedly
stood lookout. After 11 hours of questioning, he not only confessed but
implicated 15-year-old Aaron Houser. "You'd have to know Josh to understand why," says
Mary Ellen Attridge, Treadway's public defender. "He's very naive and
very gullible. There's not a streetwise bone in his body." Meanwhile, Richard Raymond Tuite, the 29-year-old
vagrant and a diagnosed schizophrenic with a lengthy arrest record who
is now serving a three-year sentence for an unrelated burglary, was
questioned by police the day Stephanie's body was found. But he was quickly discounted as a possible
suspect. And while the red sweatshirt Tuite was wearing during
questioning was confiscated, it wasn't until late last year, when
Attridge spotted what appeared to be blood stains on one sleeve, that it
was tested for dna. The Crowe family has already filed a civil rights
suit against the Escondido police and the San Diego County district
attorney's office. And the Treadway and Houser families are said to be
contemplating similar legal action. "It's like one long nightmare," says Stephen
Crowe, Michael and Stephanie's father, who bitterly accuses police and
prosecutors of trying to put away three innocent boys to save their own
behinds. "I don't know how they sleep at night." Ofshe, who estimates that he has appeared as an
expert witness in more than 125 false-confession cases, admits that his
view of police interrogation tactics may be skewed by his experience
with the practice. But he says the evidence he and others have amassed
should persuade any fair-minded person that something needs to be done
to reduce the likelihood of police-induced false confessions. A requirement that all interrogations be recorded,
which is now the rule in only two states--Alaska and Minnesota--would
help, he and other experts say. What the Justice System Can DoBut the real solution, they argue, would be to
give courts authority to evaluate the reliability of a confession by
comparing a suspect's account of the crime with the known facts. If the
substance of the confession conformed closely with the facts, it would
be admitted; if not, the confession would be suppressed. But Cassell of the University of Utah isn't
convinced that false confessions are as serious a problem as Ofshe and
others suggest. Cassell doesn't believe giving the courts authority to
scrutinize confessions is a good idea. The consequence, he suggests,
would be suppression of more truthful confessions from the guilty.
Cassell says that his examination of the facts in
nine of the 29 cases in which Ofshe and Leo claim a false confession may
have led to the wrongful conviction of an innocent person shows that all
nine confessors were probably guilty. In the Fairchild rape and murder case, for
example, Ofshe and Leo claim there was no independent evidence
connecting the defendant to the crime. But Cassell says he found that
Fairchild took police on a tour of the crime scene after confessing, and
that a watch recovered from his sister, which Fairchild claimed to have
bought in a pool hall, was identical to the victim's missing watch.
In eight of the nine cases he examined, Cassell
says, the defendant appeared to be mentally retarded or suffering from
serious mental problems. The only solution, he says, is to videotape all
interrogations and do away with the Miranda warning, which he
says does nothing to protect the innocent and only makes it tougher to
get truthful confessions from the guilty. In the meantime, the innocent may have only their
willpower to rely on. Mark Hansen is a
reporter for the ABA Journal. His e-mail address is
markhansen@staff.abanet.org.Copyright American Bar Association.

In the wake of the attempted bombing in Times Square in May
2010—as after other terrorism attempts—there have been misguided
calls to weaken our constitutional rights, including a call to
loosen the Miranda rule.

Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder told the House Judiciary
Committee that the administration wants to "modernize" and
"clarify" Miranda warnings for terrorism suspects. Miranda
warnings—ruled by the U.S. Supreme Court to be a constitutional
right—are used to inform suspects of their rights during
interrogation.

There is no evidence that the Miranda requirement has obstructed
the government from obtaining valuable information and
intelligence from suspected terrorists.

Both Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was caught on a
Detroit-bound plane with explosives in his underwear, and Faisal
Shahzad, arrested for trying to bomb Times Square with a car
full of explosives, were caught, questioned, and Mirandized.
Crucially, both cooperated with law enforcement authorities both
before and after they were read their Miranda rights.

The ACLU thinks changes to Miranda are both threatening to our
criminal justice system and entirely unnecessary. This week, we
sent a letter to Holder asking him to leave Miranda alone. And
we're not the only ones who think this is a bad idea; three
former FBI agents also sent a letter to Holder, writing:

"As professional interrogators who have spent decades
questioning accused criminals—including spies and terrorists—we
are writing to make clear that interrogators can do their job
using the existing Miranda rules. No changes are necessary. In
fact, changes might do more harm than good."

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Agency Investigation PoliciesConnecticut

Do a web search for:

State of Connecticut Department
of Children and Families

Once on the home page - look for
Policy and Regulations (bottom right hand side of the page)

Open section 34 of the policy
manual is titled 'Investigations'

The whole section is good info.
However, section 34-3-5 titled "Conditions for Interviewing the
child victim' is the info I was pertaining to about interviewing
children with or without consent.

Of course there are CT State
statutes that supports all this. I could get you the statute numbers
as well, but I am on my way out.

Section 439 of the General Education Provisions Act (20
U.S.C. 1232g) is amended to read as
follows:

"PROTECTION OF PUPIL RIGHTS

"Sec. 439.
(a) All instructional materials, including teacher's manuals,
films, tapes, or other supplementary material which will be used
in connection with any survey, analysis, or evaluation as part
of any applicable program shall be available for inspection by
the parents or guardians of the children.

"(b) No student shall be required, as part of any applicable
program, to submit to a survey, analysis, or evaluation that
reveals information concerning—

"(1) political affiliations;

"(2) mental and psychological
problems potentially embarrassing to the student or his family;

"(3) sex behavior and attitudes;

"(4) illegal, anti-social,
self-incriminating and demeaning behavior;

"(5) critical appraisals of other
individuals with whom respondents have close family
relationships;

"(6) legally recognized privileged or
analogous relationships, such as those of lawyers, physicians,
and ministers; or

"(7) income (other than that required
by law to determine eligibility for participation in a program
or for receiving financial assistance under such program),

without
the prior consent of the student (if the student is an adult or
emancipated minor), or in the case of an
unemancipated minor, without the prior written consent of
the parent.

"(c) Educational agencies and institutions shall give parents
and students effective notice of their rights under this
section.

"(d) Enforcement.—The Secretary shall take such action as the
Secretary determines appropriate to enforce this section, except
that action to terminate assistance provided under an applicable
program shall be taken only if the Secretary determines that—

"(1) there has been a failure to comply with such section; and

"(2) compliance with such section
cannot be secured by voluntary means.

"(e) Office of Review Board.—The Secretary shall establish or
designate an office and review board within the Department of
Education to investigate, process, review, and adjudicate
violations of the rights established under this section.".

When does this act apply?

When federal money is involved in the implementation and
maintenance of a program.If a school district has a federal grant to write
curriculum, this law applies.If the state
has a federal grant for a particular program, and in turn,
provides grants to school districts for the same program, this
law applies.

It has not been a good week for the famed Miranda
warning at the hands of the Supreme Court.
In decisions issued on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Court ruled
that confessions should be admitted at trial even when police
interviewed suspects in circumstances that
lower courts viewed as Miranda violations.
The Court on Wednesday issued
Maryland v. Shatzer (pdf), establishing new, more
permissive rules for police who want to question a suspect for a
second time after the suspect invokes Miranda's right to
remain silent.
The Maryland case came down a day after the justices
decided
Florida v. Powell (pdf), in which a 7-2 majority Court
said that Florida's alternative wording of the Miranda
warning is acceptable, even though it does not explicitly state that
a suspect has a right to have a lawyer present during questioning.
Stanford Law School professor Jeffrey Fisher said the rulings
continue the Court's trend of "extreme hostility toward
constitutional rules that require the exclusion of evidence --
especially confessions and the product of illegal searches -- from
criminal trials." Fisher, who heads a
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers committee that
files amicus briefs at the high court, said, "In short, this Court
sees the costs and benefits of rules designed to curb police
overreaching entirely differently than the Court did a generation
ago. "
Sidley Austin partner Jeffrey Green, who also assists NACDL and
other defense lawyers in high court arguments, added, "At this rate,
what's left [of Miranda] will be only what we see on TV."
But Lauren Altdoerffer of the
Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which supports law
enforcement officials in Miranda cases, said the rulings
don't weaken constitutional protection against compelled
self-incrimination. "The Court is allowing states and police to
draft rules that fit their needs but still fit the requirements of
Miranda." She added that the crucial question is whether
the interview of the suspect is compelled or voluntary.
In the Maryland case, which was argued on the first day
of the Court's term last October, the ruling weakens the so-called
Edwards v. Arizona rule, which states that, once a
suspect invokes Miranda, any subsequent waiver of the right
triggered by a police request is deemed involuntary -- making
further police questioning improper.
Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, carved out an
exception to that rule when there is a "break in custody" between
the first and subsequent police efforts to question the suspect. In
the case before the Court, defendant Michael Shatzer Sr., who was in
prison on other charges at the time, asserted his Miranda
rights in 2003 when police tried to question him about sexually
abusing his son.
The investigation was closed, but more than two years later was
reopened and he was questioned again in 2006, while still in prison.
Investigators read him his rights again, he signed a waiver, and
made incriminating comments about the episode with his son. Indicted
on abuse charges, Shatzer sought to have his interview suppressed
because of the 1981 Edwards rule. The Maryland Court of
Appeals, the state's high court, sided with Shatzer, citing the
Edwards rule.
Scalia said the Edwards rule should not act as an
"eternal" bar against further police questioning. "In a country that
harbors a large number of repeat offenders, this consequence is
disastrous." In the interest of producing a clear rule on the issue,
Scalia said the Court agreed that, after a 14-day "break of
custody," police may try to question a suspect again without fear
that a subsequent confession would be suppressed. "That provides
plenty of time for the suspect to get re-acclimated to his normal
life ... and to shake off any residual coercive effect of his prior
custody," Scalia wrote. In Shatzer's case, Scalia said the fact that
he was actually in prison during the "break in custody" did not
alter the calculus. Justices Clarence Thomas and John Paul Stevens
joined Scalia's decision except for the 14-day duration of the new
rule.
In Tuesday's Florida v. Powell ruling, Justice Ruth
Bader Ginsburg wrote that Tampa, Fla., police had satisfied the
requirements of Miranda even though its warning did not
explicitly tell the suspect that he had the right to have a lawyer
present during questioning. Interviewed in connection with a 2004
robbery, Kevin Powell was told he had "the right to talk to a
lawyer" before answering police questions, and that he could use
"any of these rights at any time you want" during the interview. The
Florida Supreme Court said this wording was inadequate and
misleading and the confession should be suppressed.
But Ginsburg said that, in combination, the Tampa police warnings
"reasonably conveyed Powell's right to have an attorney present at
all times." She noted that the FBI, like many other jurisdictions,
explicitly state the right to have a lawyer present, "but we decline
to declare its precise formulation necessary to meet Miranda's
requirements."
A third Miranda case is still pending this term.
Berghius v. Tompkins, which will be argued on March 1, asks
whether police can try to noncoercively persuade a suspect to answer
questions after the Miranda warning has been given, but
before the suspect has invoked or waived the right.